The Score: Big East, NFL, and Dodgers All Come Calling for Covington

Big East commissioner John Marinatto praised Zern this week for advising the collegiate athletic conference on its addition of five schools. The Big East, a longtime Covington client, has been hungry to expand following the departure this fall of member schools Syracuse, Pittsburgh, and West Virginia.

Boise State and San Diego State will now join the Big East in time for the 2013 college football season, while the University of Central Florida, the University of Houston, and Southern Methodist University will be eligible for all Big East-sponsored sports starting with the 2013-14 academic year, according to The National Law Journal's Blog of Legal Times.

"Our relationship with Covington & Burling has been extremely beneficial and integral to our expansion discussions, as well as our television planning," Marinatto said in a written statement. "I would like to single out Peter Zern for his expertise, professionalism, and counsel over the course of the past year. Peter has been incredibly responsive to our many needs during some difficult times, and, along with his associates, has been available to us essentially on a 24/7 basis."

By expanding westward, the Big East preserves its status as a major conference following the defections of heavyweights like West Virginia, Syracuse, and Pittsburgh. Zern, who has handled television contract negotiations for the Big East, advised the National Football League in September when it negotiated an eight-year, $15 billion TV deal with ESPN. Zern also advised the NFL last week on the $760 million sale of the Jacksonville Jaguars franchise from current owner J. Wayne Weaver to Illinois auto parts magnate Shahid Khan.

When reached by phone late Thursday, Zern acknowledged that "it's been a great couple of months" for the corporate lawyers in Covington's sports group, which includes fellow partners Douglas Gibson and Bruce Wilson, along with a team of associates.

"[Handling all these assignments] has been a great problem to have, although it's really not a problem because we've got a deep bench," Zern says. "We've really formed a great team to cover all of this stuff."

Covington lawyers are billing between $275 and $940 per hour and the firm received nearly $255,000 in the year prior to the start of the Dodgers' Chapter 11 case in June, according to a court filing by the firm. A declaration by Gibson, the lead lawyer on the matter, states that his billing rate next year will be $855 per hour. Covington is listed as one of the team's largest unsecured creditors with a debt of $193,000.

Ironically, the shooting came the same day that several top administrators from the university were in Washington, D.C., to attend a federal court hearing where the school is challenging a $55,000 fine levied by the U.S. Department of Education over its handling of a 2007 massacre that left 33 people dead, according to The Blog of Legal Times.

The BLT notes that the proceeding is the first ever involving a violation of the federal Clery Act, which requires all colleges and universities to disclose information about crime committed on or near their campuses. Any precedent in the Virginia Tech case could affect a pending Education Department review of Penn State in the wake of its child sexual abuse scandal, according to The BLT.

That scandal—stemming from the charges unveiled last month against former assistant football coach Jerry Sandusky and two former university administrators accused of covering up Sandusky's conduct—could wind up costing Penn State millions in legal fees. The university's board of trustees have already hired Reed Smith and commissioned former FBI director Louis Freeh and his firm, Freeh Sporkin & Sullivan, to conduct an internal investigation.

It's not just college sports coaches whose alleged crimes are keeping lawyers busy.

Former Boston Red Sox clubhouse manager Donald Fitzpatrick, who died in 2005—three years after pleading guilty in Florida to four counts of attempted sexual battery in the face of claims by seven men that he had molested them during spring training beginning in the early 1970s—now faces posthumous sexual abuse claims brought by two additional alleged victims.

The AP reports that while the statute of limitations for pressing charges against Fitzpatrick himself has expired, plaintiffs represented by Boston lawyer Mitchell Garabedian are pursuing claims against the team. Bingham McCutchen's Daniel Goldberg is representing the Red Sox in the matter.

—The Intelligencer reports that the NFL's Pittsburgh Steelers and the nonprofit Allegheny Valley School Foundation (AVS) have won a trademark infringement case against a local T-shirt company. A federal judge ruled that the company's "Terrible T-Shirt" design infringed the team's "Terrible Towel" trademark, which is exclusively licensed to the Steelers by AVS. Pittsburgh's Brucker, Schneider & Porter represented the Steelers and AVS, while Roetzel & Andress represented the T-shirt company, according to the Intelligencer.